The last Friday in March, not having class, I went into the city to explore. I wanted to visit the two cathedrals there. I went to St. Stephen’s again for mass, and then walked over to St. John’s–the last gothic cathedral that’ll probably ever be built in the world. After that I went to ANZAC square (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) and walked around the memorials. While I was in the city I met up with my cousin Anne (really my grandmother’s second cousin, so I think that makes her my second cousin twice removed, but I don’t really understand these things). It was great to finally meet the woman behind the emails. My dad has fond memories of her telling him ghost stories as a child. We had lunch and I learned alot about our shared family. Anne has written books on her family history and is in the process of researching our shared branch of the family. It turns out that my grandparents were actually married in Brisbane. As they have both passed away, we have to investigate. We went to the registrars office to get their marriage certificate. It turns out they were married at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in August of 1944. Being a newbee to family genealogy, this was  a very exciting discovery for me. It was a very special experience to get to go to the place where they’d been married 7 decades prior.

It was the first week in April where I had to remember that I was an actual student. I had two papers to write before leaving the country for the mid-semester break.  I also had to pick my classes for Vanderbilt, help plan our New Zealand itinerary and go to work. It was a good time to get a care package for home (complete with my favorite brand of peanut butter–thanks mum).  Safe to say, with my procrastination exacerbated twenty times by me international student status, it was a much more hectic week than it ever needed to be as everything was left to the last second. Thursday after work I had to catch the last train to the Gold Coast (an hour south of Brisbane). Luckily I have an amazing friend there (from my marketing class) who let me stay in her beautiful beach side apartment so I could catch my early flight out of the Gold Coast airport on Good Friday.  My friends would be joining me Saturday. And thus my Great New Zealand Road Trip began.

After a few weeks of classes, watching movies in Pop Culture (like Sunday Too Far Away and Looking for Alibrandi ) and reading Australian novels (like My Brilliant Career) and forming groups for the projects in Accounting and Marketing, I was starting to get into a routine. Perks of living in Australia were becoming more apparent–like The Hunger Games being released here earlier than in the States, and booking cheap flights to the Whitsundays (what’s not so cheap is laundry–$3 dollars for a wash.  I’ve taken to hanging my clothes around my room to dry on every available surface and hanger, so laundry day I save some money, but my room is difficult to navigate).

The last week in March, my program was going on a trip to Moreton Island. Its a long drive and ferry ride to the island, but definitely worth it. We went on a four wheel drive eco tour of the forest on our way to the sand dunes where we went sandboarding. Moreton Island is the fourth largest sand island in the world, and sandboarding is one of my favorite things I’ve done since being here. Its an amazing rush. I got off to an

ungraceful beginning, wiping out my first go down the hill, but got right back on board (literally–after an  arduous climb up the huge, steep sand hill) and went down five more times before we packed it up for lunch on the beach and snorkeling among a shipwreck, where I lost my snorkel swimming out to the wreck sadly, but as the whole time we had to be avoiding the sharp edges of the shipwreck,  we always had to be looking out. We saw many colorful fish and some nonthreatening sharks. It was a  very  fun time, and we have a great group–everyone wants to try everything, because you only live once.

The start of the third week of classes made me want to be productive, so Monday I packed my backpack and walked down by the river, past the Ferris wheel to the Brisbane State Library to do homework. I spent most of my time wandering around the various exhibits however, and was not particularly productive. It’s a huge library and at one point I wandered into a room full of tea china, and thought that this library with its enormous floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall windows facing the river must be made for me.

Wednesday of that week I joined my friend Conny at the UQ dance club, and when we got back to the flat, everyone was down in the lobby buying plane tickets to New Zealand for the mid-semester break which really got me thinking (thinking of all the money I was earning working, and all the sweeping landscape shots of Lord of the Rings.). It took me very little time to determine that, yes I did very much want to join my friends on a ten day road trip of the South Island, so I found a cheap plane ticket with JetStar and would be flying into Christchurch on

That Sunday I had actually joined the choir at church (through the insistence of the older ladies of the parish). I am not the best singer, but it’s a fun thing to do, and I don’t have to sit pathetically alone at mass every week which is a big plus. My cousin who lives in Brisbane also stopped by and gave me some of the novels for my literature class and a bunch of miscellaneous household items to complete my apartment. I finally was able to feel settled in.

That evening after work my restaurant had a huge party with all of the staff there for  birthday. It was an amazing time. There was so much food, and I was able to try all the fancy dishes that we don’t normally eat during staff dinners. Then they turned the music up and all the women danced in the traditional Turkish style of dance. It was such a cool thing to be a part of. What I’ve learned about Turkish culture so far is that they are very, very proud of it; they love sharing it with people, and hospitality is one of their biggest values—this manifests itself easily in a restaurant setting. Though it may seem that I am learning more about Turkish people than Australians, I think that immigrants or people here on temporary work visas are a huge part of present-day Australia, especially in Brisbane. From research I did before I came I know that of a population around 2 million, 21.7% of residents were born overseas and 16% speak a language other than English at home.

At first I resented the time I had to spend at the restaurant working instead of always having all my time to myself, but now I genuinely enjoy work. I am learning to make cappuccinos, lattes and flat whites as well as Turkish drinks like Ayran and Cay tea. I love the other waitresses, and the laid-back nature of Aussies makes work a fun interactive time. I get asked about my accent about every third table. What’s funny is that Aussies know that Canadians get really offended when people mistake their accent for American so they always ask me if I am Canadian first even though their first instinct is American. My American turn of phrase is also a source of amusement for my boss (who had trouble with my name the first week, and simply calls me “Alabama”) especially when I say “to-go” instead of “take-away.” And they say waitressing is stressful.

At the end of my third week in Brisbane, I went to a rugby match with my program. The Brisbane Broncos against the Northern Territory Cowboys—it was a very intense match(or at least I found it so–no idea how people who know rugby felt about it). I found it easy to follow because the game and rules are very similar to American football, minus the stopping every ten to fifteen seconds. Rugby is a very fluid game, and one of the girls in our program plays herself, so she was able to explain the rules to us. Unfortunately the Broncos lost by 2 points in the last three minutes. Rugby is definitely much more popular in Brisbane than football (I think because the shorts are shorter) . The stadium was packed, whereas last week’s football match had plenty of empty seats left.

After the rugby game, my friends from Emmanuel spent the night at my flat, so the next morning we were all trying to get to campus—them so they could get home, and me because I had a day retreat with the Newman group. However our bus just wasn’t coming, so we decided to take one of the many buses to the city and then catch a bus to campus from there. However, the problem with that was that the bus dropped us off under the Queen Street Mall, and we were lost in the labyrinth of stores and couldn’t find an exit. At one point we walked toward a large window in a department store that looked like it could be the exit to outside—the only problem was that it was two floors up. Eventually we found our way out of the maze that is consumer Australia only to be greeted by a large crowd and the sound of bag pipes. We had unwittingly stumbled onto the St. Patrick’s Day parade in the city. Brisbane always has the parade the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day—a huge celebration because of all the Irish-Australians (and also because Australians just really, really like to drink). We watched some of the parade while we laughed at ourselves. Eventually we made it to the bus we wanted, but that certainly marked my biggest and most ridiculous confusion with public transport. Well worth it.

So being in Australia, I realized that I had woefully overestimated how far my funds would go, and I knew that if I wanted to travel to all the places I wanted to see I would have to get a job to finance all these expensive expeditions. The good thing about South Bank is that there are restaurants galore. I talked to people about the best way to get a job, and all the restaurants want your resume (they call it a CV) when you apply. I printed off 20, went around on a Tuesday to about 15 places dropping it off and getting a few promises of a call back. There were no call backs. Monday I went back to one of the restaurants that had said they were hiring, wore black pants and shoes, and luckily the manager was there, I told him I had experience, and he told me to come back in an hour for training. And that’s the story of how I got hired at a Turkish restaurant. Minimum wage in Australia is $18 and though tipping is not customary, it does happen. I can only work 20 hours due to my visa, but that is enough. I love my job also. The people I work with are very nice and friendly, most of the waitresses and cooks are Turkish, but there are also other international students, mainly here learning English for 6 months, from Czech Republic, Japan, Brazil, and Estonia. I am learning so much about Turkish food and culture. The restaurant is pretty fancy and on weekends very fast-paced, but I the time passes really quickly and the customers as are a diverse as the staff, so I am constantly meeting new and interesting people. It’s definitely odd to always have my accent pointed out to me all the time. One of the best perks of my job is that they feed me their delicious Turkish food and desserts, and I am always bringing home backlava or pide. Also, it is about a 1 minute walk from my flat. Lucky, lucky me.

So the first week of classes was slightly stressful. It was a pretty steep learning curve. First I had to figure out how much time I needed to give myself to catch my flaky bus to uni(I was late to a few lectures). What was more stressful was figuring out the library and printing (12 cents a page!). The Social Science and Humanities library is where all the books I need are, and it is also the most crowded. I have never been in a noisier library. The whole first floor is bustling and hectic and full. There are dozens of computers and study tables that always seem to be full.  Eventually I figured out that if I go up to the fourth floor and go to the end of the stacks, I can usually find a nice quiet cubicle by a window to do my work.

Classes are much bigger than what I am used to, but the lecture structure is not different from any class I have taken at Vanderbilt. Professors still use PowerPoint, youtube videos and visualizers during the lecture. My favorite class is pop culture, followed by Australian literature. Marketing is interesting and poor Accounting tries its best not to put me in a stupor.

Since I only have classes two days a week I have an ungodly amount of free time. I like to spend this by going to the city beach and soaking up the Aussie sun while I read the novels for my lit class. I also joined the beach volleyball club. Have I ever played beach volleyball before? Nope, but I don’t suck too bad, and it is a really fun club and I get to meet a lot of people while we toss the ball around, waiting to jump on a free court for a game.

That Friday we went to a football match at Suncorp Stadium. It was the Brisbane Lions against the Melbourne Hearts. The game was fun even though there was less energy than the Sydney stadium and it was a draw. By this time we were getting to be old hats at the bus system, and were so oriented in the city that we actually walked back from the game, crossing the river at one of the many bridges over the river.

Sunday was clean up Australia Day with the Bridge club, and I woke up bright and early to help out cleaning trash around the university and Dutton Park. We got free pizza, and what’s better—a  certificate.

My first Friday in Brisbane was rainy, and during the day relatively uneventful. However I had a ticket to the sold-out World’s Largest Toga Party that night, so I took my bed sheet to my friend’s room and we pinned and tied and tucked and tried to make ourselves togas. As a former Latin scholar the authenticity of the costume was abysmal, but there is little room for such embarrassing pretensions at a college toga party, especially one where all tickets are sold out. There were 3,700 UQ and QUT (another big university in the area) students at the outdoor Riverstage in the Botanic gardens in the pouring rain. The party went from 6-10pm but we left a little early because the downpour was making our sheets heavy and muddy. It was definitely an interesting and fun time. And now I can say I helped beat the Guinnessworld record.

Saturday morning I went for a run and explored the Parklands in South Bank. Not many people can say that they’ve come across a replica of a Buddhist temple on their morning jog. I think I must live in one of the most beautiful and interesting areas in Brisbane.

Sunday morning after Mass I joined my friends from Vandy, and some of their friends from Emmanuel on a trip to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. That place is heaps (as the Aussie’s say) of fun. There are koalas and kangaroos everywhere and I was able to pet a dog that was part dingo. I watched a sheepdog and sheep shearing demonstration which was really interesting, even though having only been in cities I have yet to see an actual Australian sheep farm. After I was able to hold a koala named Hugo since it’s not illegal in Queensland. Hugo smelled really good–like the Eucalyptus leaves he eats. They also have a field of kangaroos that just hang out and bounce around. There is a designated kangaroo only area within this field for when the kangaroos get tired of the tourist taking a million silly photos with them, petting them, imitating them, and gushing about the way they jump. I know we must’ve sent a few over out of sheer annoyance. We had our cameras and entered full, unashamed tourist mode, desiring a new profile picture and to bond with the kangaroos. I also saw my first platypus while I was there, and they had a Tasmanian Devil feeding where chunks of hare were thrown into the pen. Afterwards we took the bus back to Emmanuel and I may or may not have been snuck into dinner, which was very yummy, even more so after only cooking for myself. It was a great way of spending my last day of freedom before classes begun.

Market Day. Absolute madness. Wednesday of O Week is Market day which is sort of like the Student Organization Fair at Vandy, except much, much huger and with a corporate portion. It took up the entire Great Court, the Grassy Knoll, and beyond. All the hundreds of student clubs had their booths set up. In addition, every business in Brisbane that wants to market to uni students showed up with large tents and tote bags to accost the masses of passing students with a million brochures, promotional fliers, and tons of swag. When you have nothing to decorate your room with, and no essentials like pens, reusable grocery bags, water bottles, sunscreen, post-it notes, notepads, student diaries (daily planners),and highlighters all the useless things one usually accumulates at fairs like this became very useful. I joined the Bridge Club (a volunteer org), and the Cardinal Newman Catholic Society. The weird things about clubs in Australia is that they make you pay to join, and they make you pay immediately (even the clubs in Australia are more expensive). I escaped Market Day early because my program had our first event of the semester: Kayaking down the Brisbane River.

The kayaking place was very near where I live, and we just waked there after our lunch and lathering on of sunscreen. Our kayaking instructor was really friendly, and after he made fun of my question about the bull sharks that swim in the river (apparently ferries are a much bigger concern, since the sharks could care less about us), we got on our kayaks and swam upstream. It was an odd contrast to be performing such an outdoorsy activity with a city skyline as scenery. It was such a cool experience to be in the river that I am always walking by, or driving across, or going the the beach by.

After kayaking I showered and made it toSt. Mary’s, an English speaking church which I found just in time for Ash Wednesday.  It is a newly restored, 120 year old, pretty church just a ten minute walk from my flat.

That night was the first of the weekly QUEST parties at the Regatta (just a short ferry ride away). Its a great way to meet people, but most of the time the music is so loud, you can’t distinguish people’s accents so guessing where someone is from is a comedy of errors. And people are from all over, from Norway to Ghana to Kuwait to the UK. I have met so many international students, but only a handful of domestics.

Thursday however, I visited my friends from Vandy that live at Emmanuel College(which is like a living community on campus). There you only meet domestics, so I was really excited about that. My friends entertained me with the wild stories of their initiations (which involved early morning wake up calls, embarrassing situations, and pancake mix). Since they are international students they are initiated with the “Freshers” or first-years in the college. For some reason that night for dinner, I really craved pancakes.

Tuesday of O Week saw me up bright and early to enroll for some of my courses. Enrollment happens the week before classes start, which is very unlike Vandy, where we enroll the semester before. I hadn’t gotten all my courses sorted out so I took a trip to the university with my friend Conny to go to the academic advising session to get information. I ended up in Intro to Accounting instead of the Spanish class I had planned (their Spanish department is minuscule so they did not offer the course I needed sadly). However, though accounting might easily be the dullest sounding class, my other three courses make up for it. Australian Popular Culture, Australian Literature, and Marketing make up the rest of my school schedule. Four classes is a full course load here (16 hours US equivalent). The classes have lecture and tutorials (which are smaller discussion groups) that meet once a week each. Try not to die of envy when I tell you that through sheer serendipity and divine providence, I ended up having a beautiful schedule: I only have class on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Granted, they are pretty long days, but not a very high price to pay for five day weekends.

After I sorted out my uni stuff my friend and I went into the city, and I had my first overwhelming experience at the Queen Street Mall. This is what it is: a labyrinth of shops above and below Queen Street (basically taking up an entire city block) with a bus station running underneath it. I go shopping there all the time now, especially to Woolsworth  (sort of like a Publix) and The Big W (like Walmart, not a super Walmart, just a normal one). They have Target here, but its too pricey for this uni student (you can’t call yourself a college student–for them college is the dorm communities on campus. They all have a distinct personality, initiations, strict meal times, traditions, and mainly first and second year students.) Anyways, I finally bought myself a hair dryer (they have 240v here not 120v like in the States, so all our electronic either melt or blow up when used here) which I share with my wonderful roommate Sara. That day our new roommate Jenny moved in. She’s first year student from Taiwan (though she’s lived in Sydney the last 8 years).  She’s a lot of fun, and its nice to have someone who understands Aussie culture around. The apartment has bedrooms for 6 (though not necessarily fridge space) so we wonder if anyone else will be moving in.

When we got back I cooked us dinner, and had my first real meal in the apartment. It was just spaghetti and garlic bread, with Tim Tams (the most wonderful chocolate biscuits-which remember are cookies) and tea (of course) for dessert.

O-Week (or Orientation week) was a whirlwind of events and activities. It started with an actual orientation where we were told information about the school and its history, and then all the practical information we would need for enrolling into classes, ect.  I am attending the University of Queensland, St. Lucia, and it is a much large school than my 6,000 undergrad at Vandy.There were over 2,700 new international students there from 99 different countries. What I have since found out is that, in a university with over 40,000 students, over 10,000 of them are international students. So that means that 1 out of every 4 students I meet are, like me, from another country. Some are here for a semester like me, or a year, or for their full degree. So at least I know why finding “domestics” is such a difficult task.

We were given a morning tea where we were able to mingle with the hundreds of students there.Then we were given a semi-useful tour of campus. It is really beautiful, with lots of tropical plants, and handsome sandstone buildings, but campus is huge, and my anticipation of getting lost was high. and in the afternoon had a BBQ where everyone signed up to be in QUEST the international student org that organizes trips and has parties and is a really fun way to meet people (just not domestics).

We got our students IDs before leaving campus, and with those we were able to get our Go Cards, which are basically public transport necessities, because as students we get 50% all fares and can just “touch on and off” to pay for our fares, as long as our cards are “topped up” (which is their way of saying “putting money on”). However, instead of taking the bus back, my new Austrian friend and I took the more scenic route of the City Cat ferry. I think I could like public transport.

That night was the QUEST welcome party in The Valley. “The Valley” is the nickname for the suburb that is a night-life hotspot in Brisbane, short for “Fortitude Valley.” Brisbane is full of some of the oddest named suburb (or at least to an American who is just used to normally named towns, and subdivision named after common trees or some kind of stream or creek). South Bank and Fortitude Valley are normal sounding enough, but here is a list of some of the other suburbs (not in any particular order of difficulty of pronunciation or spelling):
Woolloongabba – Bald Hills – Banyo – Boondall – Carseldine – Chermside – Fitzgibbon – Gaythorne – Geebung –Hendra – Kedron – Keperra – Lutwyche – Nudgee– Nundah – Pinkenba – Shorncliffe – Taigum– – Annerley – Berrinba – – Calamvale – Darra – Doolandella – Durack – Inala – Karawatha – Kuraby – Larapinta – Moorooka –Mount Gravatt – Rocklea – Tarragindi – Willawong – Yeerongpilly – Yeronga–Coorparoo – Gumdale – Tingalpa – Bellbowrie – Chelmer – Chuwar –– Enoggera – Ferny Grove – Fig Tree Pocket – Indooroopilly – Jamboree Heights – Jindalee – Karana Downs – Kholo – Mount Coot-tha – Pinjarra Hills – Pullenvale – Taringa –– Toowong (for a full list go here).

Anyways, I have no idea where these names came from, and less of an idea of how you are actually supposed to pronounce 90% of them, but rest assured, each attempt is preceded by the blush that comes before knowingly, and helplessly mispronouncing each name.
Speaking of silly names, the club where the party was at was called “Birdee Num Nums.” You just can’t make this stuff up.